Police fired tear gas and water cannons to disperse protesters Friday night in Quito as the National Elections Council rejected most of the challenges presented by Yaku Pérez and his Pachakutik party to the February 7 election result. Of Pérez’s 27,000 voting station challenges, the CNE agreed to...
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Former interior minister says officials ignored prison warnings, says coastal gangs responsible for violence
Former Minister of the Interior José Serrano says there is no excuse for the lack of preparation for the prison riots that left 80 dead in Cuenca, Guayaquil and Latacunga on Tuesday. “SNAI [the prison management office] had received more than 40 alerts that trouble was coming and gangs were about...
Plunging sperm counts could pose a bigger threat to human survival than climate change
By Miranda Bryant Falling sperm counts and changes to sexual development are “threatening human survival” and leading to a fertility crisis, a leading epidemiologist has warned. Writing in a new book, Shanna Swan, an environmental and reproductive epidemiologist at Icahn School of Medicine at...
Out with the old! After a ‘diminished’ year in Cuenca, a walk up the mountain to welcome a new one
By Jeremiah Reardon My wife Belinda and I watched the New Year fireworks set off in Cuenca, shifting from our apartment’s kitchen terrace to the living room window. Like other recent city events since the pandemic lockdown in March, the fireworks felt diminished. The display went on for half the...
Ecuador signs deal for two million doses of Chinese vaccine hours before the health minister resigns
The Ecuadorian government said Thursday it had negotiated the purchase of two million doses of Covid-19 vaccines from the Chinese pharmaceutical company Sinovac, which would allow authorities to start a mass inoculation process in the coming weeks. The announcement came less than 12 hours before...
As bodies from Tuesday’s massacre are identified, many question why violent criminals run the prisons
As the bodies of the dead were identified Thursday in Cuenca, the prosecutor’s office began reviewing evidence to determine who was responsible for Tuesday’s massacre at the Turi prison and three other prisons in Guayaquil and Latacunga. Included in the evidence are at least 15 videos of the Turi...
City tries and fails to import its own vaccines; Modern Art Museum celebrates 40 years; Cuenca registers 13,556 Covid cases, 546 deaths since March 2020
Jueves, 25/2/2021 Hola, Todos - Actividades - De la pagina cultural - MMAM hace un guiño a su pasado (MMAM gives a wink to its past) - The Museo Municipal de Arte Moderno has organized two shows to celebrate its 40 years as a museum. It opened in 1981 in one of the oldest houses in Cuenca. It is...
Delays in vaccination deliveries mean economic recovery could takes years in Latin America
By Andrew Rosati Latin America and the Caribbean, the region where the coronavirus outbreak caused the worst economic destruction and more than a quarter of the world’s deaths, is now falling victim to a slow inoculation campaign. Political fights and production bottlenecks are stymieing Brazil’s...
Dramatic drop in Covid-19 nursing home deaths proves that vaccines work, doctors say
Health officials in the U.S., Great Britain and the European Union say they are amazed at the quick decline in Covid-19 cases and deaths in nursing homes following the rollout of vaccines. “This is stunning,” said Dr. Gil Morris, medical director at the Ashland Assisted Living Center in central...
Outraged Cuenca officials demand that violent criminals be transferred from Turi prison, claim that federal government violated agreement
As national officials debate the reasons for Tuesday’s riots and murders in four federal prisons, Cuenca’s mayor demanded that the most violent prisoners be transferred out of the Turi Rehabilitation Center south of the city. Other local officials, including two former mayors, supported the...